John Edwards Affair Leads To Federal Indictment

Friday, June 3, 2011

NPR Staff and Wires

A federal grand jury indicted two-time presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday over massive sums of money spent to keep his mistress in hiding during the peak of his 2008 campaign for the White House.

Above: Former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his children Emma Claire (L) and Jack leave the funeral services for Elizabeth Edwards at Edenton Street United Methodist Church on December 11, 2010 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

He was scheduled to be arraigned later in the day in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The case of USA v Johnny Reid Edwards contains six counts: one count of conspiracy, four counts of illegal campaign contributions and one count of false statements. The indictment was returned in the Middle District of North Carolina.

Edwards could face five years in prison if convicted.

A spokeswoman for Edwards said she wasn't aware of the filing and declined immediate comment.

The indictment was the culmination of a federal investigation that lasted more than two years and scoured through virtually every corner of Edwards' political career.

It said Edwards proposed the names of wealthy donors who could give his mistress and their baby financial support. The money paid for hotels, chartered airplanes and living expenses. And none of it was reported to federal election officials.

The indictment said the payments were a scheme to protect Edwards' White House ambitions. "A centerpiece of Edwards' candidacy was his public image as a devoted family man," the document read.

"Edwards knew that public revelation of the affair and the pregnancy would destroy his candidacy by, among other things, undermining Edwards' presentation of himself as a family man and by forcing his campaign to divert personnel and resources away from other campaign activities to respond to criticism and media scrutiny regarding the affair and pregnancy," the indictment added.

Edwards has signaled he believes the government's case is weak and that he will fight it in court.

We all have the right to judge. We teach our children to choose friends carefully. To do that they must judge. In regards to what Edwards did I don't know too many people who can judge considering how common this act is among people. What he did is nothing new. Infidelity? What's new about that?

I like Edwards and agree he truly screwed up on this one. The image of a man having a woman on the side while his wife suffered before dying. There's no way he can recover from that. It will be curious to know if he can get a fair trial considering everyone depises what he did.